coondoggie writes: "It may be a gimmick or maybe the ultimate answer, but a California city this week Ok'd a draft ordinance that would let businesses install 7,000 volt electric fences to protect sites from rampant copper thieves. As reported by the Sacramento CBS station, the reaction form one business owner to the ordinance says it all: "It'll be a little fun to watch one of these guys get electrocuted holding my fence trying to rob me.""

As a former business owner that had to address the risk of materials theft, I support the idea of business owners being allowed to take reasonable measures to prevent this type of loss. Potentially killing the possible drunk homeless guy looking for shelter seems a bit "unreasonable" to me. Our solution was to analyze the potential loss over the course of five years and then accepting the need to spend a good portion of that in setting up a very high quality monitoring, recording and reporting system. We th